If all the photographs ever taken were sorted into subject categories, it is probable that the biggest single pile would be that which covered the family.

Ever since Kodak suggested to the general public that “you push the button, we do the rest”, camera owners the world over have seen the importance of immortalising family events.  Christmas; the family holiday; children and their birthday parties; visiting relatives.  These are the photographs that are most treasured.  Intimate, personal, and largely unseen. They are the items most people would claim to miss the most if their homes were burned to the ground.

Indeed, historians have for some time recognised the collective importance of such images, giving a visual narrative to history and changing social moirés.

One area of family photography has however remained largely unexplored, and that is how professional photographers photograph their own families.  How do people who spend their lives taking great photographs relate to their wives, husbands, children, parents and siblings?  Are they aloof?  Are they intimate?  Do they apply the exacting standards of their professional work to the chance shots of the children at play?  Family, a new book from Phaidon sets out to examine this curious relationship.

Subtitled Photographers Photograph Their Families, this is not a commissioned piece, and it is not restricted to current or even recent photographers.  Rather it is a genuine attempt to curate into one body some of the private and intensely personal photographs of 56 photographers from around the world, and throughout the history.

Having recently become a father, I may be more receptive to its charms than others, but Family comes across as a rather wonderful book, to which the word gentle is well suited.  It not only allows a greater insight into the characters of some well known photographers, but compels the reader to re-examine their own approach to portraying their family and friends.

Family, edited by Sophie Spencer-Wood with preface by Henri Peretz, Phaidon 2005. £24.95.   ISBN 0-7148-4402-0   www.phaidon.com

This review was originally written for the Photographic Journal

Being away from home for any length of time usually results in a longing for the familiar, but for Simon Roberts his marathon trip round Russia in 2005 (resulting in the critically acclaimed Motherland) raised questions rather than longings. As he explored what it means to be Russian and the relationships Russians have with their landscape, he found himself increasingly considering what his relationship was with his own country and nationality.

Roberts is about as middle English as it is possible to be. Brought up in the the Surrey commuter belt, the son of a Cumbrian woman and a London man, his childhood was one that would be recognisable to most middle class Middle Englanders growing up in the 70s and 80s. His recollections of childhood holidays in the Lake District and at the seaside informed much of his appreciation of the English landscape, inevitably leading to his questioning how much this shaped his own sense of nationality. Indeed, what does it mean to be English, as distinct from Welsh, Scottish, or the more general British?

Cover of We English by Simon Roberts

Facing the sight of Russians at play in the Siberian landscape he began to examine the nature of the relationship we English have with our homeland, and before he had finished shooting Motherland his sights were set on the next project. Thus two years later, with Russia well behind him he persuaded wife Sarah and daughter Jemima to join him in a camper van on a ten month journey around England to observe the English in their environment, and possibly find out who he was in the process.

One of the curious things about this body of work is that it is intrinsically more distant than Motherland; how is it that an English photographer could feel more intimate with foreigners in a foreign land than with his own countrymen at home? An obvious consideration is that we are all drawn inexorably to the exotic, it holds greater fascination for us and paradoxically our very closeness to “home” can make photographic intimacy that much harder to achieve. Indeed, Simon has drawn attention to the fact that virtually nothing has been produced on England in the last ten years by British photographers; cheap flights and myriad conflicts having proven a stronger draw for his contemporaries as they set out to make their mark as photographers elsewhere. The strength of We English comes from his determination not to battle that awkward closeness, choosing instead to embrace the distance and make it an intrinsic part of the work. He employed the questions he had regarding his own national identity to give a level of objectivity to his work that is arresting. It is perhaps worth noting that Simon is a human geography graduate, and although the artistic approach of We English is very different to Motherland, it seems clear when taken together with the breadth of his earlier more photojournalistic output where his interests and natural inclinations lie.

In his research Roberts considered the rich history of visual documentary that exists about England, both photographically through the likes of Tony Ray Jones, Bill Brandt and Martin Parr, and in the work of painters like Turner and Constable; he also took inspiration from further afield, and the influence of the Flemish masters Bruegel and Avercamp is hard to ignore. To his credit he used this research not so much to provide inspiration for his own objectives, but to gain a deeper understanding of the narratives that different artists have employed. The danger – of which he was all too aware – of setting out on this kind of project is that the work you produce can become either a pastiche or a derivative of what has already gone before.

Roberts was determined that his work should stand on its own merits even if it inevitably alludes to the work of those in whose paths he has walked. Frequently referred to as “this green and pleasant land”, a photographic examination of England as landscape alone could easily degenerate to chocolate box sentimentality, but We English is not simply about landscape, it is about the place of the English within it. While he chose to stay away from individuals, people are a vital part of the pictures Roberts has made, but the personality portrayed is of the English as a whole, a portrait that is at times touching, curious and barmy. But it is neither critical nor saccharine, only observational.

Much of the imagery is about borders and margins; those places where one thing ends and another begins, and how these delineations make statements not only about the landscape and its uses, but also about the people we are. Sometimes the resulting photographs are inherently beautiful, but more often the beauty lies deeper, in a quiet understanding that while we are each to our own in pursuit of happiness, collectively we are English.

The more you contemplate We English the clearer it becomes that Roberts’ real artistic allusion is rather clever. He could have pursued the immediacy and reportage style of Kate Schermerhorn and her brilliant work America’s Idea of a Good Time, but instead chose the more considered approach of large format photography to reflect on the leisure activities that define who the English are within the landscape, rather than who they are forced to be. To put it another way, most of us work to live, and the work we do is often happenstance. But our leisure time, chosen by us as individuals and being so precious, compels us unwittingly to make a personal rather than forced connection with the landscape we inhabit. To that end the work he has produced has more in common with L S Lowry than some of the artists Roberts has been compared to. But whereas Lowry was intrigued by the social revolution that was industrialisation, Roberts’ “matchstick men” are drawn to whatever green they can find in the name of unwinding. It is here that the fine detail of the large format comes into its own, each image a tableaux depicting numerous events and encounters: each part significant, each image greater than the sum of these parts. A whole play, a whole commentary within an instant. And yet these works are less the decisive moment of Cartier-Bresson fame, and more the essence of a people and place inextricably linked. What Roberts shows us is that England is only what it is by virtue of the people that we are.

Mad Maldon Mud Race, River Blackwater, Maldon, Essex, 30th December 2007

There is another thing that makes We English different, and that is the word “we”. Roberts wanted his work to be a collaboration, and while it inevitably reflects his view of things – nothing artistic can ever be truely objective – he knew from the outset that if his journey was to produce anything of substance it would need to draw on the knowledge, whims, and character of the English themselves. Through his blog and brilliant use of The Times, the BBC and many local newspapers, Simon encouraged people to tell him about their England, and the events that shape their lives. As a result We English is a collaboration; a genuine reflection of the English at the start of the 21st century.

We English has all the hallmarks of a great body of work by a photographer of considerable depth. It shuns the flashy “in-yer-face” tactics so commonplace in favour of quiet thought and subtle observation. It is work that repays the reader through frequent reexamination: full of humour, but more subtle than Erwitt; full of commentary, but less judgemental than Parr; full of beauty, but without cliché.

The book is large format and elegantly produced (although my copy sadly has a production fault across my favourite image – it must be someone else’s favourite too!), with exquistely detailed bordered images set for the most part one to a double page spread, with an insightful introduction by Stephen Daniels. But if you really want to get the most from this body of work you need to view the prints at exhibition (the first major exhibition of We English in the UK will be at the National Media Museum in Bradford from March 12th to September 5th 2010) and just as importantly spend a lot of time absorbing the wealth of detail and background information on the We English website.

For all his innate Englishness, Roberts chose to view the English in their landscape from the perspective of an outsider in large part because he was, and remains, uncertain of what it means to be English himself. In short a road trip at home is about discovery of oneself as much as it is about discovery of place. His continuing journey of self-discovery will undoubtedly be welcomed by many, and deservedly so.

We English – Simon Roberts, Chris Boot Publishing, 56 colour photographs, 112pp, Hardback, £40.00, ISBN 978-1905712144. www.chrisboot.com

There are some photographers you really ought to know better, but don’t. They go quietly about their work, unassuming, not wanting to do the obvious or offend their subjects. René Burri is that photographer. A man not afraid to talk about the untaken photographs; the images missed because he chose to miss them. His is a considered approach, one that has resulted in many iconic images and a deserved reputation among his colleagues as one of the giants of twentieth century photodocumentary.

A Magnum veteran, it is unsurprising that he should have sought to publish a major retrospective of his work, and still less surprising that he should do so through Phaidon, masters of the photographic monologue who have published over 15 books by Burri’s Magnum colleagues.

Born in Zurich in 1933, Burri came into photography almost by accident. From childhood he was unquestionably artistically inclined, his mother saved wrappers to help feed her son’s demand for drawing paper, and his attendance at Zurich’s well regarded art school was almost inevitable. Burri, however, was initially turned off photography by the pungent smells associated with the darkroom, and it was only when he saw the lighting rigs of the studio, and their inherent Hollywood glamour that his thoughts turned to the possibilities photography might offer.

A naturally inquisitive man, Burri found Switzerland claustrophobic: the mountains obscured his view of the world beyond. Furthermore, the methodical order and neutrality so often associated with Switzerland, and ingrained in Burri during his training by the esteemed formalist, Hans Finsler, became something Burri wrestled with all his life. The struggle though, was not to break free from its strictures, but to harness its potential as a tool to be used so effectively in his work.

This retrospective is a celebration of Burri’s personal work. In common with many photographers he disliked the restrictions associated with commissioned work, and continues to see the camera primarily as a means of personal expression. Nevertheless he took such assignments based on his need to pay the bills, and naturally they provided many of the opportunities to further his quest for personal satisfaction, and importantly led to long associations with a number of publications, in particular the Swiss periodical Du. Indeed, the closing chapters of the book detail Burri’s many exhibitions and publications, and tantalisingly reproduce a handful of magazine spreads – the only colour reproductions included.

The book is cleverly designed, having the feel of a catalogue, but the permanence of something more special. It is a testament to Burri’s remarkable and unassuagable eye that after nearly 500 pages the reader is left wanting more, and knowing that what has been revealed is only a taste.

René Burri Photographs, Phaidon Press, 378 Duotone and 44 colour illustrations, 448pp, Hardback, £59.95, ISBN 0-7148-4315-6. www.phaidon.com

Every now and again someone has an idea so blindingly obvious it is difficult to see why it has not already been done.

Take the Magnum photographers for example.  They spend their lives chasing stories; stories are their raison d’ètre.  Sure they publish books on particular stories:  Larry Towell has The Mennonites, and Paul Fusco has RFK Funeral Train.  They even have collective books on given stories, like New York September 11, and Arms Against Fury, but generally they are retrospectives.

The Fat Baby is the new book from Eugene Richards, one of the brightest stars in the Magnum firmament.  It bucks the trend with something really unique: a retrospective of stories.  Rather than put together a large coffee table tome of great images taken out of context which would undoubtedly sell, Richards has chosen to publish the original stories as he took them, with his own notes or text alongside.  This may not be ground breaking stuff, but on a book of this size (432 pages with some 300 duotone images) it feels as though it is.

Richards’ work is powerful, poignant and eloquent.  The images stand on their own merits in isolation, but put into the context originally envisaged the effect is magnified.  They really do become greater than the sum of their parts.

Now sixty years old, Richards is well established as one of the leading exponents of the photoessay, and could easily have chosen to use work from throughout his distinguished career.  Any such retrospective would have been well received, but one suspects that he might look upon the retrospective as the preserve of retired photographers.  Make no mistake; Eugene Richards is very active, and The Fat Baby draws only on his considerable pool of recent stories. 

Arguably Richard’s greatest achievement, and indeed the reason he is able to gain access to groups of people who might otherwise be hostile to his advances, is the manner in which he gives voice to other people’s stories without being judgemental.

While there are many photographers who view “concerned photojournalism” as an invitation and means to voice their own views, the real genius of Richard’s narrative is the manner in which he presents deeply moving stories and leaves the reader to form their own opinion.  This is no small achievement, and one suspects it is a large part of his reason for producing the book.  While his Magnum credentials give him considerable clout when it comes to the use of his images and captions, he nevertheless often finds his photographs being used as mere illustrations to accompany text, which can put a completely different slant on a story to that which he may have intended.

The Fat Baby is a collection of 15 essays, with subjects ranging from gay parenting issues in Tuscon (Here’s to Love), to the famine suffered by the villagers of Safo in Niger (The Fat Baby – from which the book takes its name).

By reproducing the notes and keeping the original narrative of the stories together, it invites the reader to consider the issues: it provokes a response.  No one who professes to support what documentary photography is about should ignore The Fat Baby.  It is a monumentally important book.  Not simply because it is well produced, but because it actually gets back to the root of why pictures such as these are made in the first place.

The Fat Baby by Eugene Richards, £59.95/€90.00, Phaidon Press, March 2004.

We are all inexorably drawn to war.  Tales of courage under adversity, heroism under fire, acts of selflessness and love, men in uniform and the pomp and technology of the military in action.  It is at once fascinating, horrifying, shocking and guaranteed to provoke a response.

It is no wonder then, that war has always exerted a pull on photographers.  Some go to make a name for themselves; others hoping their work might make a difference.  Some go for the rush.  Whatever the motivation, they are usually divided into two camps: those who look for the dramatic images of combat in the front line, and those who turn to the plight of the civilians caught in the crossfire.

New York based photographer Lori Grinker has uniquely found a different way to portray war.  When the truces are signed and the guns fall silent, the press turns its attention elsewhere, but the sights, sounds, smells, relationships and losses are necessarily etched into the psyches of the combatants.  While other photographers have concerned themselves with showing the man within the war, Grinker has strived to portray the war within the man.

Afterwar manages the substantial achievement of personalising the conflicts of a century.  Men and women caught in the dehumanising chaos of war are left to reconcile their experiences with their own fundamental humanity.  Some meet it head on, others try to file it away, and get on with their lives.

Readers looking for groundbreaking photography or iconic images will be disappointed with Afterwar, but they will also be missing the point.  Allied with the testimony of her subjects in their own words, Grinker’s colour photographs achieve something that has eluded every other photographer: they deglamourise war.  While each of the subjects is portrayed with incredible dignity the overall effect is unremittingly dark and depressing.  War is hell.

Afterwar is elegantly designed, using a reverse chronology to take us back from a taste of the recent war in Iraq through all the major conflicts of the past century to the First World War.  It crosses continents, cultures and languages setting each conflict in context.  Ostensibly each person in the book represents a survivor of war, but their experiences have necessarily robbed them of something precious, and mankind as a whole is diminished by what they went through.  If there is any justice Afterwar will find its way to the desks of all those charged with calling men to arms.

Afterwar, Veterans from a World in Conflict is published by de.MO, and priced at £29.00.  Hardback ISBN 0-9705768-7-0.  248 pages.